WORK FORCE BLOG -- SCOTT SUTTELL

The Dayton Daily Newsreports that most Ohioans buying insurance next year on a statewide health exchange created by the Affordable Care Act “will avoid the sticker shock that state officials and others have warned them about, based on premium calculations for exchange plans submitted to the state for approval.”

Under the ACA, insurers will be required to offer plans on the exchanges that fit within four levels of coverage: bronze, silver, gold and platinum.

“Using the second-lowest cost silver plan for baseline comparisons, the average monthly premium for a 40-year-old nonsmoker to buy what is expected to be the most popular level of coverage on the exchange was $282, according to the analysis from Avalere Health, a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm that follows state and federal health programs,” the Dayton newspaper reports.

That figures is more than $100 lower than the Congressional Budget Office's estimate that the average monthly premium for the same level of coverage nationwide would be about $433 a month in 2016.

While the premium estimate in Ohio is lower than the national average, “it's still higher than premium costs for most individual plans on the market today,” the newspaper says. That's mainly because insurers' costs to provide health coverage on the exchange “will be significantly higher as a result of minimum benefits requirements that are typically more generous that what most individual health plans offer today.”

“Premiums will certainly be higher than what they are today,” Caroline Pearson, vice president at Avalere Health, tells the Dayton newspaper. “But anybody who's already buying coverage in the open market is most likely paying more than what they will pay with a subsidy.”

The auto dealers group represents more than 250 new-vehicle dealerships in northern Ohio. Through the partnership, the GCADA said it has made “a strategic commitment to promote activities that encourage healthy living and disease prevention among its members.”

A formal kickoff is planned for Wednesday, July 10, when individual dealerships “will be introduced to the programs that can help control health care expenses and increase productivity,” according to the GCADA.

“BeWell Solutions provides us with a customized service for our members' wellness needs by improving employees' health, increasing productivity and ultimately reducing our health insurance and workers' compensation costs” said Lou Vitantonio, the association's president, in a statement.

According to a survey conducted by WorldatWork and ITA Group, 41% of respondents include behavior-motivating plans in their recognition programs — an increase of 16 percentage points from five years ago, when such plans first started appearing.

“Length-of-service, above-and-beyond performance and peer-to-peer recognition remain the top three most prevalent goals for recognition programs,” Workforce.com reports.

For the first time in the 11 years since this survey has been conducted, programs to motivate behavior “have been identified as the fourth most important aspect of employee recognition programs,” according to the report. Further, Workforce.com says, “behavior-motivating plans were only 1 percentage point behind peer-to-peer recognition plans, the third most popular kind of recognition plan.”

Workforce.com says the survey also found that 46% of senior managers view recognition programs as an investment rather than an expense. In addition, 41% of respondents feel a "high level of support" for recognition programs from senior management, up from just 4% in 2010.

Casting a wider net: A long feature in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch looks at what the Missouri city can learn about attracting immigrants based on efforts made by other cities, including Cleveland.

The St. Louis Mosaic Project kicks off its next phase this week, “offering some ideas on how St. Louis might draw more newcomers, and start fleshing out a fuller plan,” the newspaper says.

The Post-Dispatch notes that St. Louis “is not the only place trying to flip its economic script through immigration,” as “a number of cities across the Midwest and Northeast” are testing strategies that “could help point the way for St. Louis.”

In Cleveland, the paper notes, the Internet is a big part of the effort by nonprofit group Global Cleveland to put the city on the migration map. The 2-year-old group is launching a social media campaign and online portal designed to help potential residents understand the city better.

“It's really going to be a one-stop shop, everything I'd want to know about what life here is like,” Joy Roller, Global Cleveland's president, tells the St. Louis paper.

The story notes that Global Cleveland “is targeting not just immigrants but also “boomerang” migrants who moved away, and others. Still, newcomers from abroad are a big piece of the pie. Global Cleveland has launched programs aimed at boosting the region's Latino and Asian populations, in the hopes that they'll draw more friends and family over time.”

The organization also is planning “to tackle one of the trickiest things for anyone moving to a new town: finding a job,” according to the story. For instance, the group last fall “sent a staffer to a job fair in Puerto Rico to recruit college students for companies in Cleveland,” the newspaper reports. This spring it hosted online job fairs for medical and IT employers. The IT job fair drew applicants from 25 countries.

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